Peu de travaux se sont attachés à estimer les statistiques relatives aux crues fréquentes en sites non jaugés. Celles-ci ont de fait été délaissées par la communauté hydrologique, plus encline à s’intéresser aux événements extrêmes (périodes de retour d’au moins 10 ans) utilisés dans la gestion du risque inondation. Cependant, le régime des hautes eaux ne se limite pas à ces seules caractéristiques. Une bonne connaissance des crues modérées est requise dans de nombreux domaines comme l’hydroécologie ou l’hydromorphologie. La fréquente occurrence de ces crues implique en effet un modelage régulier du lit. Elles concourent ainsi à conditionner les habitats écologiques au sein des hydrosystèmes d’eau douce.L’objectif de cette thèse consiste à caractériser le régime des crues fréquentes, i.e. de périodes de retour de 1 à 5 ans, en France métropolitaine. Pour cela, il est nécessaire de considérer les chroniques disponibles au plan national, et d’en extraire l’information hydrologique pertinente. La constitution d’un échantillon fiable permettant une analyse robuste représente à ce titre une étape importante. La sélection de stations s’appuie sur une analyse des valeurs extrêmes de débit, extraites des chroniques de débit à pas de temps variable (longueur de la série, stationnarité, comportement des distributions statistiques…), ainsi que sur les informations fournies par les gestionnaires des stations hydrométriques. La démarche adoptée consiste à décrire les évènements de crues modérées dans un souci d’exhaustivité, à la fois en termes de débits mais aussi de volumes, selon une analyse multi-durées décrite par les courbes QdF (débit-durée-fréquence), qui fournissent les quantiles de crue (pic et volumes). Le modèle QdF convergent exploité ici permet de réduire à 3 le nombre de paramètres descriptifs du régime des crues.Pour caractériser le régime des crues fréquentes sur l’ensemble du réseau hydrographique français, la démarche intègre la mise en œuvre de méthodes dites « de régionalisation ». Il s’agit de transférer l’information hydrologique disponible aux sites de mesures vers l’ensemble du réseau hydrographique français. Plusieurs approches ont été envisagées. Ainsi, des formulations empiriques établies sur des découpages régionaux ont été mises en œuvre. Fréquemment utilisée, cette technique nécessite de limiter le nombre de stations présentant des enregistrements disjoints afin d’éviter le risque de représenter une variabilité temporelle plutôt qu’un effet spatial. Le respect de cette contrainte entraîne une perte de 30% de stations hydrométriques de l’échantillon initial.C’est pour limiter cette perte d’information non négligeable que la méthode TREK (Time-REferenced data Kriging) a été développée. Cet algorithme de cartographie a été conçu afin de prendre en compte le support temporel des données disponibles en plus du support spatial. Les données disponibles participent plus ou moins aux estimations selon leur période d'observation propre. TREK permet ainsi d'atténuer la perte de données provoquée par le recours à une période de référence commune ou un seuil maximal de lacunes autorisées. Pour répondre aux objectifs de la thèse, les différentes méthodes d’estimation en sites non jaugés sont mises en œuvre et leur efficience est évaluée dans le cadre d’une validation croisée. Cette démarche de comparaison objective permet de sélectionner le modèle optimal pour caractériser le régime des crues fréquentes sur le réseau hydrographique français. / Only a few studies have focused on frequent floods regimes at ungauged locations. Most of works have put their efforts on extreme flood events (return periods of 10 years or more) needed for solving many engineering issues in flood risk management. However, high flows regime is not confined to extremes values. A good understanding of frequent floods is required in a wide array of topics like hydroecology and hydromorphomology. Frequent floods provide many functions, maintaining and rejuvenating ecological habitats and influencing the geomorphology of the streambed, so their distribution must be also known.The main objective of this work is to characterise the frequent floods from a statistical point of view (with a return period between 1 and 5 years) in France. Forming the dataset is a preliminary crucial step to derive both robust and reliable statistics. The selection relies on different criteria, for example related to the quality of discharge measurements, the length of records, the self-assessment of people in charge, and finally on an analysis of extreme values extracted from time series (stationarity, shape of the distributions…).A comprehensive description of frequent floods regimes (intensity, duration and frequency) is required. It is achieved by applying the flow-duration–frequency (QdF) model which takes into account the temporal dynamics of floods. This approach is analogous to the intensity-duration–frequency (IdF) model commonly used for extreme rainfall analysis. At gauged locations, the QdF model can be summarised with only three parameters: the position and scale parameters of the exponential distribution fitted to the samples of instantaneous peak floods and a parameter homogeneous to a decay time computed from observed data.Different regionalisation methods were applied for estimating these three QdF parameters at ungauged locations. Regionalisation methods rely on the concept of transferring hydrological information from a site of measurement to ungauged sites. However these approaches require simultaneous records to avoid that the map is spoiled by temporal variability rather than display truly spatial patterns. Regional empirical formulas were derived but the constraints discussed above lead to discard 30% of the dataset.Time-REferenced data Kriging method (TREK) has been developed to overcome this issue. This alogrithm was developped in order to account the temporal support over which the variable of interest has been calculated, in addition to its spatial support. This approach aims at reducing the loss of data caused by the selection of a common reference period of records required to build a reliable dataset. The performances of each method have been assessed by cross-validation and a combination of best features is finally selected to map the frequent flow features over France.

No / This chapter analyses the how, who, where and why of rapid rise in intra-regional investment by companies from ASEAN since 2009. The chapter analyses the push and pull factors of intra-regional investment in ASEAN, the resulting patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the accompanying rise of strong regional players. The region’s FDI landscape is changing in terms of investment sources, players, FDI trends and dynamics of the region. This trend is strongly affected by stepped up efforts by ASEAN governments to encourage their national companies to invest in the region and the influence of the ASEAN Economic Community. Regional integration and emerging business opportunities are providing an impetus not seen before in driving intra-regional investment. As more ASEAN companies position and prepare for AEC 2015, this intra-regional investment wave is likely to gather force. The chapter lists the regional and global ‘footprint’ of the top 50 largest ASEAN companies by revenues. The thus identified companies include companies operating in oil and gas, mining, agri-business, telecommunications, food and beverages, manufacturing, banking, power generation, infrastructure, real estate and healthcare services.

Flood design necessitates discharge estimates for large recurrence intervals. However, in a flood frequency analysis, the uncertainty of discharge estimates increases with higher recurrence intervals, particularly due to the small number of available flood data. Furthermore, traditional distribution functions increase unlimitedly without consideration of an upper bound discharge. Hence, additional information needs to be considered which is representative for high recurrence intervals. Envelope curves which bound the maximum observed discharges of a region are an adequate regionalisation method to provide additional spatial information for the upper tail of a distribution function. Probabilistic regional envelope curves (PRECs) are an extension of the traditional empirical envelope curve approach, in which a recurrence interval is estimated for a regional envelope curve (REC). The REC is constructed for a homogeneous pooling group of sites. The estimation of this recurrence interval is based on the effective sample years of data considering the intersite dependence among all sites of the pooling group. The core idea of this thesis was an improvement of discharge estimates for high recurrence intervals by integrating empirical and probabilistic regional envelope curves into the flood frequency analysis. Therefore, the method of probabilistic regional envelope curves was investigated in detail. Several pooling groups were derived by modifying candidate sets of catchment descriptors and settings of two different pooling methods. These were used to construct PRECs. A sensitivity analysis shows the variability of discharges and the recurrence intervals for a given site due to the different assumptions. The unit flood of record which governs the intercept of PREC was determined as the most influential aspect. By separating the catchments into nested and unnested pairs, the calculation algorithm for the effective sample years of data was refined. In this way, the estimation of the recurrence intervals was improved, and therefore the use of different parameter sets for nested and unnested pairs of catchments is recommended. In the second part of this thesis, PRECs were introduced into a distribution function. Whereas in the traditional approach only discharge values are used, PRECs provide a discharge and its corresponding recurrence interval. Hence, a novel approach was developed, which allows a combination of the PREC results with the traditional systematic flood series while taking the PREC recurrence interval into consideration. An adequate mixed bounded distribution function was presented, which in addition to the PREC results also uses an upper bound discharge derived by an empirical envelope curve. By doing so, two types of additional information which are representative for the upper tail of a distribution function were included in the flood frequency analysis. The integration of both types of additional information leads to an improved discharge estimation for recurrence intervals between 100 and 1000 years. / Abschätzungen von Abflüssen mit hohen Wiederkehrintervallen werden vor allem für die Bemessung von Extremhochwässern benötigt. In der Hochwasserstatistik bestehen insbesondere für hohe Wiederkehrintervalle große Unsicherheiten, da nur eine geringe Anzahl an Messwerten für Hochwasserereignisse verfügbar ist. Zudem werden zumeist Verteilungsfunktionen verwendet, die keine obere Grenze beinhalten. Daher müssen zusätzliche Informationen zu den lokalen Pegelmessungen berücksichtigt werden, die den Extrembereich einer Verteilungsfunktion abdecken. Hüllkurven ermitteln eine obere Grenze von Hochwasserabflüssen basierend auf beobachteten maximalen Abflusswerten. Daher sind sie eine geeignete Regionalisierungsmethode. Probabilistische regionale Hüllkurven sind eine Fortentwicklung des herkömmlichen Ansatzes der empirischen Hüllkurven. Hierbei wird einer Hüllkurve einer homogenen Region von Abflusspegeln ein Wiederkehrintervall zugeordnet. Die Berechnung dieses Wiederkehrintervalls basiert auf der effektiven Stichprobengröße und berücksichtigt die Korrelationsbeziehungen zwischen den Pegeln einer Region. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist eine Verbesserung der Abschätzung von Abflüssen mit großen Wiederkehrintervallen durch die Integration von empirischen und probabilistischen Hüllkurven in die Hochwasserstatistik. Hierzu wurden probabilistische Hüllkurven detailliert untersucht und für eine Vielzahl an homogenen Regionen konstruiert. Hierbei wurden verschiedene Kombinationen von Einzugsgebietsparametern und Variationen von zwei Gruppierungsmethoden verwendet. Eine Sensitivitätsanalyse zeigt die Variabilität von Abfluss und Wiederkehrintervall zwischen den Realisationen als Folge der unterschiedlichen Annahmen. Die einflussreichste Größe ist der maximale Abfluss, der die Höhe der Hüllkurve bestimmt. Eine Einteilung in genestete und ungenestete Einzugsgebiete führt zu einer genaueren Ermittlung der effektiven Stichprobe und damit zu einer verbesserten Abschätzung des Wiederkehrintervalls. Daher wird die Verwendung von zwei getrennten Parametersätzen für die Korrelationsfunktion zur Abschätzung des Wiederkehrintervalls empfohlen. In einem zweiten Schritt wurden die probabilistischen Hüllkurven in die Hochwasserstatistik integriert. Da in traditionellen Ansätzen nur Abflusswerte genutzt werden, wird eine neue Methode präsentiert, die zusätzlich zu den gemessenen Abflusswerten die Ergebnisse der probabilistischen Hüllkurve – Abfluss und zugehöriges Wiederkehrintervall - berücksichtigt. Die Wahl fiel auf eine gemischte begrenzte Verteilungsfunktion, die neben den probabilistischen Hüllkurven auch eine absolute obere Grenze, die mit einer empirischen Hüllkurve ermittelt wurde, beinhaltet. Damit werden zwei Arten von zusätzlichen Informationen verwendet, die den oberen Bereich einer Verteilungsfunktion beschreiben. Die Integration von beiden führt zu einer verbesserten Abschätzung von Abflüssen mit Wiederkehrintervallen zwischen 100 und 1000 Jahren.

Le scénario international n’est aujourd’hui, ni unique ni exclusif des États. Les collectivités territoriales interagissent avec des autres acteurs du système international de façon décidée. L’essor de l’action internationale des administrations locales, se manifeste dans un contexte marqué par une série de dynamiques économiques, sociales et politiques, qui contribuent ensemble à renforcer les institutions locales. Les collectivités locales colombiennes ne sont pas l’exception dans ce phénomène, mais, les conditions pour qu’une collectivité territoriale donnée mène des actions à contenu international, sont liées aux aspects politiques, normatives et institutionnels. Ainsi, les aspects pris en compte pour définir ces conditions sont, en substance, les suivants : a) la forme de État; b) le modèle d’organisation territoriale; c) le modèle de décentralisation implanté; d) la capacité à conclure des accords avec des collectivités territoriales étrangères et e) le monopole et l’usage de la violence par l’État.Or, dans le cas où l’État n’a pas ces capacités, et où, le niveau local a une faible structure politique et administrative, cela a-t-il un sens d’attribuer des compétences aux collectivités territoriales pour développer une action internationale ? Ce travail de recherche, à comme objectif d’analyser les conditions politiques, normatives, administratives et institutionnelles qui freinent ou conditionnent l’action internationale décentralisée en Colombie. Dans le cas de la Colombie, malgré les obstacles institutionnels générés par la forme de l’État, le manque de capacité administrative au niveau local et la cooptation du territoire par des groupes illégaux, ce n’est pas un thème inaccessible aux collectivités territoriales colombiennes. En dépit de les difficultés, il est tout à fait possible de planifier et exécuter cette action, en coordination avec les politiques du niveau central et en partant d’une approche régionale. / The international scenario doesn't belong anymore to nations. Local territories are decisively interacting with other actors in the international context. The rise of decentralized international actions can be observed in contexts in which political, economical and social dynamics contribute to strengthen local institutions. Although local governments in Colombia are not the exception, their actions are regulated by legal and political aspects such a) the type of state b) the model of territorial organization c) the decentralization model d) their capacity to sign agreements with foreign local institutions and e) the nation's monopoly and use of violence.But when the nation doesn't have the capacity and there is a weak political and administrative structure, does it make sense: To Assign competencies to local governments to develop an international action? This research intends to analyze the regulatory and institutional conditions that facilitate or limit decentralized international action in Colombia, where despite institutional obstacles because of the type of state, lack of administrative capacity at the local level and the presence of illegal groups, the international action is not a forbidden topic for local administrations. Even with some difficulty, it is possible to plan and execute these actions in coordination with national policies and from a regional perspective.

Submitted by Valquíria Barbieri (kikibarbi@hotmail.com) on 2017-09-11T20:00:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2014_Maria José Vieira da Silva.pdf: 10804055 bytes, checksum: bcfb07e7acdd42402fd78c14ae4fada2 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2017-09-12T13:25:13Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2014_Maria José Vieira da Silva.pdf: 10804055 bytes, checksum: bcfb07e7acdd42402fd78c14ae4fada2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-12T13:25:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2014_Maria José Vieira da Silva.pdf: 10804055 bytes, checksum: bcfb07e7acdd42402fd78c14ae4fada2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-02 / A presente dissertação teve como objetivo analisar a gestão regional da saúde desenvolvida pelo Colegiado de Gestão Regional da Região Oeste de Mato Grosso, considerando as diretrizes do Pacto pela Saúde, no período compreendido entre os anos 2010 a 2012. O estudo apoiou-se na análise do sistema federativo e nas relações intergovernamentais e em conceitos adotados para análise da gestão e da regionalização da saúde, tais como institucionalidade e governança. A metodologia de abordagem eminentemente qualitativa foi desenvolvida por meio de estudo de caso onde buscou-se compreender os fenômenos sociais que acontecem em uma instância decisória do SUS. As técnicas de coleta de dados foram a entrevista, a observação, o questionário auto aplicado e a análise documental. Para o tratamento dos dados qualitativos utilizou-se a análise de conteúdo. A política de regionalização instituída pela SES/MT no período 1995 a 2002 sofreu um processo de descontinuidade, embora essas instâncias regionalizadas continuassem presentes estão enfraquecidas frente a um movimento de recentralização da Secretaria de Estado de Saúde. A institucionalidade do Colegiado de Gestão Regional foi classificada como intermediária. Encontra-se formalmente instituída e organizada, mas não dispõe de estrutura suficiente para o seu funcionamento adequado. É um espaço valorizado pelos atores, que são representativos. Sua legitimidade como instância de negociação e decisão técnico-política é relativa. Interferências políticopartidárias e/ou clientelistas estão presentes no processo deliberativo. Em relação à atuação do Colegiado, a autonomia e a capacidade do Colegiado para formulação, implementação e avaliação de políticas e planejamento regional encontram-se limitadas. O Colegiado constitui-se como instância da governança regional, demandando ainda o fortalecimento de sua autonomia política, gerencial e financeira. / This thesis aimed to analyze the regional health management that was developed by the Regional Management Collegiate of Mato Grosso, considering the guidlines of the Pact by Health during the period from 2010 to 2012. The study was based on the analyzes of federative system and on the intergovernamental relations and also on concepts adopted for the analyses of management and the regionalization of the health, such as institutionality and governance. The methodological approach eminently qualitative was developed through the case study where was sought to understand the social phenomena that happen in a decisive stage of sus. The techniques of data collection were the interview, the observation, the questionary self applied and the documental analysis. For the treatment of the qualitative data, the content analysis was used. The politic of regionalization estabilished by SES/MT during the period from 1995 to 2002 underwent a process of discontinuity and although these regionalised instances kept on going they were weak before a moviment of recenter promoted by the State Secretariat. The Regional Management Colligiate was classified as intermediate. It is found formaly established and organized but do not have a sufficient structure in order to have a proper functioning. It is a valued place for its actors that are representative. Its legitimacy as a place of negociation and technical, political ruling concerns are relative. Political and party interfernce are present in the deliberative process. In relation to the Regional Management was identified that the autonomy and the capacity of the Colligiate of formulation, implementation and the political evaluation and regional planning is limited. The Colligiate is constituted as instancy of regional governance demanding the strenthering of its political, managerial and financial autonomy.

Actuellement, les experts, les chercheurs et les décideurs soulignent l'importance de l'échelon local, devenu le cadre privilégié des nouvelles stratégies de développement. Il constitue même le niveau pertinent où les questions de développement et d'emploi se posent réellement. On observe aujourd'hui que les principales sources de financement des collectivités locales au Maroc sont constituées du produit de la fiscalité, du transfert par l'Etat et de certaines ressources par le biais du Fonds du d’Equipement Communal (FEC). On observe également que les budgets locaux demeurent insuffisants au regard des besoins énormes à satisfaire et que les recettes budgétaires couvertes par l’Etat central sont grevées par les charges de fonctionnement qui empêchent tout effort d'investissement.Partant de ce cadre général, la problématique de cette recherche s’articule autour des questions de la gestion, de l’évaluation et du management des finances locales et leur impact sur la gouvernance locale ainsi que sur les politiques publiques locales au Maroc. Aussi, il s’avère nécessaire d’interpeller la nature du système financier des collectivités locales marocaines à travers la question majeure des mécanismes d’évaluation des finances locales qui peuvent être envisagés pour une gouvernance locale au Maroc. Les questions majeures qui se posent se rapportent ainsi aux diverses mesures et actions prises pour évaluer la gestion des finances locales au Maroc et la place de l’évaluation des finances locales dans les pratiques de la gouvernance.La thèse est structurée en deux parties :- La première partie, intitulée « Diagnostic des finances locales : état des lieux », a été consacrée à l’organisation financière locale du Maroc. Cette partie a permis de dresser l’état des lieux des finances locales au Maroc, leur genèse, leur évolution, les principales sources de financement et leurs limites. Cette partie nous a permis également d’aborder la question de l’autonomie de gestion des finances locales, en la situant dans le cadre du processus de décentralisation et de territorialisation des réformes sectorielles.- La seconde partie, intitulée « Les réformes des finances locales et leur évaluation pour la bonne gouvernance» a été consacrée à la question des exigences d’une véritable modernisation de l’administration financière locale. Un intérêt particulier a été accordé à la fois à la réforme des sources de financement des collectivités territoriales et à la réforme de la gestion financière et aux modes de management des finances locales pour déboucher sur un modèle de management susceptible d’améliorer la gouvernance locale dans notre pays. / Currently, the experts, the researchers and the decision makers stress out the importance of the local level, which became the privileged framework of the new development strategies. It even constitutes the relevant level where the questions of development and employment really arise. It is observed today that the main sources of financing of the local government agencies in Morocco are made up by the product of the taxation, the transfer by the State and certain resources by the means of the Funds of Communal Equipment (FEC). It is also observed that the local budgets remain insufficient when considering the enormous needs to satisfy and that the budget revenue covered by the Central state is burdened by the operating costs which prevent any effort of investment.Based on this general framework, the problem of this research revolves around questions of administration, evaluation and management of local finances and their impact on local government and on local public policies in Morocco. Also, it proves to be necessary to challenge the nature of the financial system of the Moroccan local government agencies through the major question of the mechanisms of evaluation of local finances that can be considered fora local governance in Morocco.The major questions which arise thus relate to various measurements and actions taken to evaluate the management of local finances in Morocco and the place of the evaluation of local finances in the practices of the governance.The thesis is structured in two parts :-The first part, entitled “Diagnosis of local finance: state of play”, was devoted to the local financial organizationof Morocco. This part made it possible to draw up the inventory of fixtures of local finances in Morocco, their genesis, their evolution, the main sources of financing and their limits. This part also enabled us to tackle the question of the autonomy of management of local finances, by locating it within the framework of the process of decentralisation and territorialisation of the sectoral reforms.- The second part, entitled “the reforms of local finances and their evaluation for the good governance” was devoted to the question of the requirements of a true modernization of the local financial administration. A private interest was granted at the same time to the reform of the funding sources of the territorial collectivities, the reform of financial management and the modes of management of local finances to lead to a model of management which is likely to improve the local governance in our country.

The central question addressed by this thesis is whether and to what extent ASEAN and SADC provide a regional response to security challenges from within and without the region respectively. In the examination of a regional response to security challenges in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa, this study investigates each regional organisation’s efforts and methods of how to approach and deal with regional security problems. In examining the processes and patterns of ASEAN and SADC regionalism in terms of the security dimension, the focus is on political security in its regional context. In doing so, the mechanisms of both ASEAN and SADC politico-security regionalisms are explored. This study also aims to compare SADC and ASEAN to find similarities and differences in terms of the way in which ‘politico-security regionalism’ as a regional project is used to respond to global challenges, as well as to internal needs. Moreover, this study seeks to explore what can be learnt from the experiences of both ASEAN and SADC with regard to regionalism and regionalisation in response to political security threats. This will, as a result, be conducive to understanding the character, nature and type of contemporary regionalism and regional security in the South, including Southeast Asia and Southern Africa. Furthermore, in discussing the question of whether and how ASEAN and SADC attempt to shape and modify or change the process of globalisation and regionalisation in politico-security terms, this study emphasises a multi-dimensionality of contemporary regionalism – so called ‘new regionalism’ – which would normally be based on constructivism. Therefore, this study argues that the theoretical problem relates to the insufficiency of neo-realist and neo-liberal institutionalist accounts that call for a much needed attempt to bring ASEAN and SADC into contemporary discussions about the mechanisms of politico-security regionalisms within the context of a (social) constructivism of international relations (IR) theory. / Thesis (DPhil (International Relations))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

The aim of this diploma thesis is to regionalize the final consumption expenditure of households, general government and also non-profit organisations serving households. It is necessary to search for suitable regionalisation keys (weights) for each of consumption expenditure of all three sectors mentioned above. With these keys it is then possible to divide the national value (taken from national accounts) into the regions. The national values are regionalised to NUTS 3 level (14 regions called "kraj" in the Czech Republic). In the thesis obtained results are also assessed from the regional point of view. Further, the potential alternative indicators are being discussed, that are not possible to use now, but could be a good aim for further research in this topic.

Au-delà de leur rôle d’icône du changement climatique, les glaciers de montagne sont une composante essentielle de notre planète. Ils sont, de plus, de véritables « climat-mètres » naturels. Malgré leur faible superficie (0.5% des terres émergées), les glaciers de montagne contribuent à hauteur de 30% à la hausse du niveau des mers. Dans certaines régions, ils constituent de véritables enjeux quant à l’eau potable, l’agriculture, la production hydroélectrique ou les aléas glaciaires. Peu sont en revanche instrumentés (<0.0025%) et leurs fluctuations à l’échelle de régions entières sont mal connues.Grâce au développement de capteurs satellitaires à haute résolution spatiale (métrique à décamétrique), le développement de méthodes automatisées permet aujourd’hui d’augmenter considérablement le nombre de glaciers observés. Après avoir dressé un état de l’art des méthodes existantes et identifié les verrous méthodologiques, nous avons développé deux méthodes en particulier.La première se base sur la détection automatique de l’altitude de la limite glace/neige (i.e. ligne de neige) à la surface du glacier, à partir d’images satellites optiques. Cette altitude, lorsque mesurée à la fin de l’été, est un marqueur du changement de masse à la surface du glacier ayant eu lieu au cours de l’année (appelé bilan de masse de surface). Cette approche nous a permis d’estimer le bilan de masse de surface annuel de 239 glaciers dans les Alpes européennes et de 82 glaciers dans les Andes tropicales pour la période 2000-2016 et 2000-2018, respectivement. La perte moyenne annuelle observée est de -0.74 et de -1.29 m équivalent eau par an pour les deux régions respectivement. A notre connaissance, cette approche a permis d’établir le premier jeu de données de bilans de masse de surface annuels pour des glaciers individuels à échelle régionale à partir d’images satellites optiques. Une dépendance du bilan de masse de surface moyen par glacier à des caractères morpho-topographiques (e.g. pente, altitude médiane …) a été observée, où plus les glaciers sont pentus et hauts en altitude, moins leur perte de masse est importante. Une comparaison avec des mesures in situ dans les Alpes Européennes révèle une surestimation de la perte de masse par ces dernières si on les extrapole spatialement, notamment à cause de la faible représentation de glaciers à forte pente (>20°) dans les mesures in situ. Notre étude sur les Alpes Européennes a de plus permis d’identifier une variabilité interannuelle hétérogène sur cette région, en partie expliquée par des contextes climatiques différents grâce à l’utilisation de données issues de ré-analyses.Le développement d’une autre méthode a permis, à partir de l’analyse de carte d’albédo issues du capteur MODIS, de caractériser le bilan de masse de surface annuel et estival de 30 glaciers dans les Alpes françaises. Cette étude ouvre la porte à l’utilisation de cette méthode pour l’analyse du bilan annuel et saisonnier à l’échelle régionale.Ce travail a permis, à travers des applications dans différentes régions englacées, de développer et valider des méthodes capables, à partir d’images satellites optiques, d’estimer le bilan de masse de surface annuel et saisonnier de glaciers de montagne à l’échelle de régions entières. Ces estimations peuvent ensuite être utilisées pour : (1) étudier l’impact du climat local sur les glaciers de montagne ; (2) d’investiguer de possibles conditions météorologiques favorisant les fluctuations observées ; (3) calibrer et valider les modèles glacio-hydrologiques utilisés pour estimer les contributions actuelles et futures des glaciers de montagne au fonctionnement hydrologique des bassins versants et à l'élévation du niveau des mers. / Beyond their iconic role of climate change, mountain glaciers can be considered as Earth’ essential component and natural “climate-meter”. Despite their small spatial coverage (0.5% of emerged land), mountain glaciers contribute as high as 30% of the observed sea-level rise. In some regions, they are considered as essential issues because of their importance in terms of potable water, agriculture, hydroelectricity or natural hazards. A small share is however monitored in situ (<0.0025%) and their fluctuations at regional scale are poorly known.Thanks to the development of high spatial resolution satellite sensors (metric to decametric), new methods are today available to significantly increase the number of monitored glaciers. After a state of the art of the existing methods and an identification of the limitations, we focused our attention on the development of two methods.The first one is based on the automatic detection of the snow/ice interface altitude (i.e. snowline) at the glacier surface from optical satellite images. This altitude, when estimated at the end of summer, is a proxy of the annual glacier-wide mass change at the glacier surface (called surface mass balance, SMB). Using this approach, we estimated the annual SMBs of 239 glaciers in the European Alps and 82 glaciers in the tropical Andes for the period 2000-2016 and 2000-2018, respectively. The mean mass loss are -0.74 and -1.29 m water equivalent per year for the two regions, respectively. This approach allowed to derive the first dataset of annual SMBs for individual glaciers at regional scale from optical remote sensing. We found significant relationships between the computed SMBs and the glacier morpho-topographic features (e.g. slope, median altitude, …), with steeper and higher glaciers, experiencing less mass losses. Comparison with in situ monitored SMBs revealed an overestimation of mass losses from in situ estimates, due to a low representativeness of steep glaciers (>20°) in the in situ datasets. Our study also revealed heterogeneous inter-annual variability across the European Alps, partially explained by the climatic context of the studied sub-regions, thanks to the analysis of climate reanalysis data.We developed a second method to derive the annual and summer SMBs from albedo maps, computed from MODIS images. With an application on 30 glaciers in the French Alps, this work opened the way toward a regional application of this method, in order to estimate both annual and summer SMBs.By performing regional applications on different glacierized regions, we developed and validated methods capable of deriving the annual and summer SMBs of individual mountain glaciers at regional scale, from optical remote sensing data. These data could then be used to (1) assess the impact of peculiar climatic conditions onto mountain glaciers; (2) investigate possible meteorological conditions driving the documented glacier fluctuations; (3) calibrate and validate glacio-hydrological models used to estimate the current and future contributions of mountain glaciers to the hydrological functioning of mountain catchments and to sea level rise.

This study explores the role of a foreign ministry within the context of diplomacy and regional cooperation, focusing on the delivery of regional public goods. Diplomacy is described as a state of mind, an approach to the conduct and/or management of international relations that emphasises the timeous and pacific application of intelligence and tact in the making and implementation of foreign policy. As the custodian of diplomacy and diplomatic practice within a national government, the foreign ministry constitutes the primary grouping of expertise on international matters, responsible for the execution of foreign policy but also involved in the process of foreign policy making. Regional cooperation is defined as an issue-focused arrangement, in terms of which participating states may cooperate for a joint development project and facilitation of exchange of information or best practices. Within the context of regional cooperation, regional public goods are defined as any goods, commodities, services, system of rules or policy regimes that are public in nature, that generate shared benefits for the participating states and whose production is a result of collective action by the participating states. Arguably, the provision of regional public goods is considered the most effective way for regional economic communities to reduce poverty and to develop economies of scale. As an assumption, this study contends that, because of the need for regional public goods agenda-setting and policy prioritising, and based on the utility of diplomacy, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) plays a central and catalytic role within the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This assumption is described and analysed at the regional strategic level, specifically related to the responsibility of SADC foreign ministries in terms of the management of regionalisation in Southern Africa; and at the national operational level, emphasising the role of DIRCO vis-à-vis the delivery of regional public goods. At the regional strategic level, it was found that diplomacy serves as an institution of regional relations; as an instrument of regional foreign policy; as an administrative function in SADC, specifically related to the responsibilities of foreign ministries; as an instrument in the formulation of regional foreign policy; and as a dialogue between regional actors. At the national operational level, it is evident that diplomacy serves as an institution in DIRCO‟s management of regional public goods delivery; as an instrument within DIRCO‟s participation in the execution of policies towards regional public goods delivery; as an administrative function within DIRCO; as an instrument in terms of DIRCO‟s role towards the formulation of policies towards regional public goods delivery; and as a dialogue between DIRCO and key regional actors in terms of regional public goods delivery. Due to the urgency and priority accorded to the delivery of regional public goods, DIRCO must consider the establishment of a core capability specialising in the technical competencies related to specific programmes within the delivery of regional public goods. / Dissertation (MDiplomatic Studies)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Political Sciences / unrestricted